


Dark heart

by GreenPhoenix



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-16 22:17:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3504776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenPhoenix/pseuds/GreenPhoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toby has always feared the darkness, but he'll learn to live with it. In Oz, with Schillinger and Keller.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SegaBarrett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/gifts).



> Thanks to gaialux for beta.

When Tobias Beecher was a child, he used to fear the darkness. His father told him not to be afraid, but he still feared it.  
The nightmares didn’t stop until he was much older.  
By then he got to discover some real life monsters. He didn’t know what the darkness hid, which made it worse.  
He used to keep his lights on till morning.  
When he was much older, he’d learn what the darkness really hid.  
*  
There was darkness in Tobias’ own heart now, and he sought to chase it away with alcohol.  
He had thoughts of doing terrible things to his rivals at the law firm, and dreams of deviancy he never told Gen about.  
She was his wife, the mother of his children.  
A good woman, and a sweet person, and she was nothing like him.  
He could never tell her that he longed for her to hurt him for having evil thoughts.  
He couldn’t, he wouldn’t.  
*  
Dousing the demon with alcohol only made it worse.  
And so he killed a little girl, and wound up in a living hell, peopled with real life monsters.  
It was a bitter pill to swallow.  
But swallow it he would.  
He had no choice now.  
*  
Vern Schillinger was the chief demon of Oz.  
He took all the good and the pure in Tobias, drove it out, and left only a festering darkness in its wake.  
He took Tobias’ heart and ripped it out with his teeth, replacing it with a darker heart that bled with dark blood, and beat heavy in his chest.  
*  
Vern rode him like a horse, while no guards ever helped Tobias.  
It wasn’t their place to do so.  
He was guilty, and this was his punishment.  
Hell on earth had finally come, and he felt right at home.  
Vern cared for him, oddly enough, whipping his sorry ass into shape.  
Or tried to anyway.  
He sought to escape with heroin, and he chased the dragon through the houses of the unholy with Ryan, with his green eyes and dark heart lying beside him.  
He kissed Ryan, and the other man flinched, but allowed it.  
The Irishman tasted sweet, and not tainted with fear.  
Vern kissed him sometimes, but it always tasted bitter.  
Vern didn’t kiss him that often thankfully.  
He demonstrated ownership in other ways.  
*  
Tobias knew his place at last, that was something.  
He was the lowest of the low, a slave and a whore.  
He deserved what Vern did, and what the Nazi did fed something in him, his deepest desires and most secret fears.  
Vern hit Tobias, and he hated himself for loving it.  
He knew he was evil now, and had no need to escape what he’d become.  
*  
He rebelled against his master, grew teeth and claws.  
Had to do it, in order to survive.  
His survival instinct was still strong, no matter how much he might wish it otherwise.  
So Vern made his fate with dark alchemy.  
A creature so alluring he could not resist.  
The cunning and devious charmer stole his heart and made him fall.  
Their kisses tasted like liquor, and he fell back into addiction.  
*  
Keller broke him and Vern was the architect of his downfall.  
Vern had dictated each move; he’d orchestrated each caress, each soft whimper of love.  
Each secretive tryst was because Vern willed it so.  
Keller took Tobias, and he let it happen.  
He surrendered to Keller like he had to alcohol, heroin and Vern before.  
It was something he’d never understand with his rational mind, but love sneaked up on him, corrupted him.  
Tobias hated himself for falling so easily, but it was inevitable.  
He and Keller were Vern’s creatures, his sons in a way.  
Vern loved them both, and built them into his own image.  
*  
He fell back into Chris’ arms, knowing he could never be happy with someone who didn’t have the taint of evil about them.  
Gen divorced him and he let her.  
It was best for her and the children.  
She was all good, and he deserved a monster’s love so deeply.  
The warped, possessive love of Christopher Keller was what Tobias craved now.  
It fed him, and he needed it more than anything else.  
The strength in Keller’s arms could crush him or shield him.  
Vern had tainted them both, and yet Vern himself was secretly pleased that his creatures had each other.  
He desired them both, and they would end him.  
He did not know that, but anyone with eyes could see it coming.  
Oz, his ruined and blackened kingdom needed new heirs, and his pseudo-sons would do nicely.  
Toby lay with Keller each night, and he knew how to provoke him to get the pain he craved now.  
Their fights were never that serious anyway, only a constant pointless turf war to establish Tobias’ standing in this hellish place.  
He would never surrender to Keller without a fight, and it made things that much sweeter for Keller when he finally won each battle.  
Chris treasured him because he had teeth, and trusted him not to bite too hard.  
Tobias knew that much, and he wasn’t afraid to use his knowledge for his own ends.  
Keller would give him his lion’s share of sorrow and pleasure.  
All he had to do was ask.  
Keller aimed to please, like he always did.  
Vern made him that way, long ago in Lardner.  
It was strange to think of Chris as a young, vulnerable soul.  
But once he was that, and then his master found him.  
Just like he found Tobias, much later.  
It was fated to be.  
The fates were bitches of course, weaving Tobias’ destiny with their bloody loom.  
*  
The darkness no longer scared him; he was one of its own now.  
He had no fear left, thanks to Vern.  
He should thank him really.  
But he never would.  
Vern might appreciate that on some level.  
The son rising to lay waste to the father.  
It was Oedipal and beautiful somehow.


End file.
